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How changing the way I tie my shoe laces improved my running comfort

I never thought I’d be putting up a blog post about tying my shoelaces, but this little tip has been a godsend for me and I thought it was worth sharing.

A few months ago, I bought some new running shoes. I used a reputable running shop, with the facilities to perform gait testing (for me that was Advance Performance in Peterborough – Up and Running in Milton Keynes were friendly enough but seemed to have issues with getting sufficient stock) and I eased myself into them with some shorter loops around town before going out on my usual 5-mile circuit (which is a mixture of road running and cross-country).

Unfortunately I was suffering with some pain on the side of my feet, above the arches and getting blisters to match – the Arch Lock on my Saucony ProGrid Stabil CS2s seemed to be rubbing.

I went back to the shop, who tested me in the shoes again (definitely a good fit) but also suggested a couple of modifications to how I tie them. Firstly, I skipped a hole above the Arch Lock but I’m pretty sure the big difference came from switching to a lock-lacing method, also known as a runner’s tie (the video shown here is from Runners World but the same technique is also described in pictures at run4it). I hadn’t noticed that my heel was slipping, but it seemed to work, by creating a loop with the last two eyelets then feeding the laces through the opposite side, pulling down to tighten and up to tie in a bow as usual.

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